


Process of Elimination

by ThinkingCAPSLOCK



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Gore, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkingCAPSLOCK/pseuds/ThinkingCAPSLOCK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There only deserves to be one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Process of Elimination

He's had this conversation before.

It isn't the first time he has laid out this strategy. Not the first time he's told Karkat off for this plot, not the first time he's slicked back his tuffed purple hair and gazed out at the angels. No. There's something off. An ache. A whisper. A deep, unsettled grip on his heart, that he shrugs and shuffles. 

He closes the chat. The marble floors are black and somber, echoing the clicks of his soles against their smooth surface. Something happens, from behind the twitching of wings and the ruffle of gold silks. Eridan turns, careful, methodic, eyes slits behind glinting frames.

The sky is a tangle of shattered lines and screams. Cracks of blood seep down as acidic rain. He reaches one hand out. The drops pool, they swirl and mix, starting crisp and blue and green and red, turning a dull brown. He closes his hand. Opens it. The brown stains the cracks and creases, but there is no sensation. No dampness, no warmth, no shivers. Another drop hits his fingers. It stains to the nail bed. 

He glances out. The angels twitch and shatter, bits of white and fire pouring across the ground. The buildings crumble, shaking from deep within. Black marble and stone breaks down, inwards, outwards. Eridan clenches his hands. His wings twitch again. His eyes narrow. 

It's only moments before he's flying through the destruction. Drops splatter down his golden clothes, dulling the shimmer. His god hood is marred. His wings are tainted. For a moment, he is scared, and in an instant, it is gone. 

There's a pinprick of pain, somewhere on his toes. It feels like a small stab. It rushes up, and through, and over him. This isn't the first time it has happened. Something makes it all feel familiar. He's burned like this before. 

He is skin, then bones, then dust, before finding himself in deep black space.

Eridan looks around. Everything has gone. There are no towers or rain. His computer is missing. A house floats towards him, encased in a bubble. It's new and somehow familiar. He pushes a hand, and arm, a torso through. He doesn't recognize the land or the figure without horns looking up at him. 

A quick glance over his clothes. There were no marks on his god hood. No deep blood rain on his fingers and creases. His wings twitch and he makes his way down to the ground.

He learns. There are aliens out there, more than he can ever imagine, and thousands of offshoots of himself. Failed Eridans. Despicable wastes of space in their timelines. Not rulers, not conquerors, and never God Tier. He stands proud. His wings twitch. There is comfort in learning that he is the only one who survived. The one who was meant to be powerful. He stood out. 

But even the statement nags at him. Somewhere deep, his gut twists. He remembers the rain. He thinks of the conversations he has, over and over. The hints of repetition, of change, of prolonging things that should have ended.

It isn't until he finally meets himself Eridan realizes he is dead. The other him is a frail shell of a no one, huddled into the corners of a timeline where he dies at the hands of your moirail. Eridan spits on him and flies off.

He knows they have the same white, dull eyes, and the thought makes his skin crawl.

From there, it's a struggle of memories, in and out of dream bubbles. He knows he has never done this before. He knows that this is new territory. The worlds are vivid and shifting, and the more of himself he sees, the more the bumps on his skin crawl. The more his nails find themselves in his palms, buried deep. The more his wings twitch.

He is God. He deserves to come out on top.

It is not long, or perhaps an eternity, before he loses track of time. His anger boils and sits beneath the surface, pressing against his skin, coursing through his veins. It's not right that someone other than him, some other Eridan is about who is considered the true version. Eridan knows he is the one. He is the one in golds and beauty. He is the one who conquered over his session.

He remembers how it all burned, how when reaching the door, everything went wrong. They never made it into their perfected session. He had to stand and feel his bones slowly chip into ash. He had to listen as he could not force out a scream.

All of this, just because his session wasn't the proper one. Because some upper power said that his path was inferior. Eridan Ampora is not inferior. He knows that. And he is going to make sure everyone else in the afterlife knows it too.

The next version of himself Eridan finds he greets with a punch across his gills. He slams the failure back, fist after fist landing against skin, hair, clothing. His knuckles turn purple. His clothing gets soaked. The blood has no taste, no warmth. He is wet and grinning, so hard his jaw aches and his eyes strain. It isn't hard to kill someone when they are already dead.

Soon, there is nothing there. A purple stain. Eridan stands, wiping his hands on the ground nearby. He is sticky and sweaty and his wings twitch with adrenaline. He launches in the air, straight out of the dream bubble. It might not have been the right Eridan, but any failure didn't deserve to live.

He snaps horns and rips out hair. He punches and kicks and bites every failure, every scarf wearing shit who dares carry the same name. He shows no mercy. He is the Prince, the God, and their imitations mean nothing. Gold turns purple, translucent wings turn solid with stains. He kills thousands of versions of himself, and none of them is the one he hates the most.

His search is endless and merciless. He kills them quietly, or in a crowd, in any way he can. Hatred presses against the backs of his eyes, seeping out into fists and shouts and bone crunching grips. 

And then Eridan finds him.

Eridan Ampora stands across from himself in the Land of Wrath and Angels. The only two left. And the failure, stitched together along the torso, eyes dreary and downcast, is pathetic. He doesn't meet your gaze. His white eyes are glazed, defeated, and he hasn't even fought you yet. Blood heats up under his skin. Energy forces itself down his arms, into his palms and fingers. Eridan's breathing becomes short and gasping. 

The buildings crumble as Eridan launches his attack. The failure fights back, but after a thousand battles with himself, Eridan knows every trick and every move. His fist collides with fin and teeth and the crunch is the most satisfying noise in the world. His teeth tear out chunks of flesh. His wing is ripped and torn. His skin is picked and clawed at. He is kicked in the gut, again, again. 

His godhood is torn off, and he lands a single blow on the stitching, leaving the failure to gasp. In seconds, Eridan is on top of him, ripping thread and pounding guts. The black marble floor is sticky with blood and flesh. Bits of flesh land in his hair, in his nose, in his mouth. He grins and punches and pants. 

Long after the failure stops moving, he keeps punching. Only when his arms ache and his body collapses does he stop. He breathes in purple and sweat, and exhales gas from his mouth - neither warm nor cool. He sits up. 

For some reason, the mangled mess before him seems ridiculous now. Was someone like that really considered to be the true Eridan? A pathetic mess like that? Something bubbles in his throat, and it escapes as a laugh. He can't stop it or contain it. The now familiar purple stain, bright on the dark tile, the separated body parts, the bits of his own wings scattered around the ground, nothing stops the laughter.

He's never had this feeling before. And he likes it.


End file.
